With a chance to reflect on weird shit in one’s past, one may conclude ‘That’s who I was, that’s what I did or didn’t do, that’s how it turned out,’ and shrug. Events weren’t going to turn out better or worse, since I was there and made that mess. Or didn’t. Who the hell knows, anymore? One of my older cousins isn’t speaking now to any of my father’s children because 30 years ago I asked what happened to my grandmother’s older brother and my older cousin didn’t want to open that or any other can of worms. It annoys me that the older ones in the family are planning to take all the secrets with them, but short of pumping a tartuffo full of truth serum, what are the options really?

Four years ago, my mother joined The Choir Invisible and somehow still manages to trill a confusing tune. My sister Daria recently found this recipe my mother photocopied in the seventies. In my mother’s papers we found piles of photocopied recipes from the same era – and probably the same Xerox machines – that were the result of many office parties with co-workers from all over the Northern Hemisphere. She may have enjoyed Sauerkraut Cake or simply asked for the recipe to be polite, but I feel sure this recipe originated somewhere in a fervent desire not to starve and its people migrated to the U.S., where heavy cream is available in drugstore refrigerators on every corner. Or near cows. People have cows. Did she make this cake? Did I sample it? All that is lost in the mists of Time. I’m not making that cake – ever.

Yesterday, I bought chickpea flour. This comes with its own conflicts for me. My family called chickpeas ceci beans. I will deny under oath I ever called them chickpeas and you did not hear me say that. Right? Exactly. We’re all ashamed. Eeeeeeeons ago, I watched an Italian cooking show in Spanish from Latin America, and while it’s totally crucial to know that I don’t speak Spanish, I am reasonably conversant in Italian food. That chef made a form of Sicilian pizza with a ceci bean flour layer. I was scandalized! I was intrigued! I forgot about it until yesterday, when I decided the past wasn’t getting any less confusing. Fritters made from ceci bean flour are called panelle. They have few ingredients and are a testament to the ability of Sicilians to survive on very little, but was that a lost part of our food tradition? I have no way of knowing if it was, because it isn’t anymore. Related: in my mother’s recipe box, I discovered most of the Italian recipes my family cherishes came from such authentic sources as Good Housekeeping.

What happened to us? Everyone who would tell us is gone, and the one who could tell won’t talk. We have been making messes now long enough that they’re ours. So I’m going to make panelle. Maybe I’ll be embarrassing forty years from now.